


young blood, never get chained

by thatsparrow



Series: beau week 2019 [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Rogue!Beau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18627997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: After she leaves the Cobalt Reserve, Beau takes what the monks taught her and turns it to a profit.--written for day six of beau week: class swap





	young blood, never get chained

**Author's Note:**

> man I am getting this one in just under the wire. also she technically might be considered more of a rogue-monk multiclass, but I'm okay with that
> 
> title (three guesses?) from "raise hell" by dorothy

After she leaves the Cobalt Reserve, Beau takes what the monks taught her and turns it to a profit.

It proves easier than she might've expected, enough so that at times she wonders if the Cobalt Soul hadn't intended for their skills to be adapted thus. They'd already showed her how to sharpen her fists to target the most vulnerable stretches of abdomen, solid strikes to the kidneys and nerve clusters along the spine, to drive her weight against the weak, breakable points of a kneecap or shoulder joint; less effort by far when she uses a knife instead of her knuckles. Her days of training still allow her access to the Archives, and it's simple enough to wait for a quiet moment among the stacks to pull down books on poison, study which ones can be brewed herself and which will leave the least evidence. Even meditation serves her well, all those lessons in silence finally justified when she needs to center herself after her third hour pressed flat against the lining of a wardrobe, when she needs to push past the ache knotting itself into the tensed muscles of her legs. Had her father guessed this is what his payments would amount to? Unlikely. He'd never thought her capable of much.

Months go on, and Beau amasses gold and a kill-count in equal measure, gets used to spending the money without seeing blood on it. She takes to it better than she would have once guessed, trades the cobalt blue for a shadow black that won't betray her in the dark, quiets the voice that occasionally wonders what this line of work says of her. Soon enough, she develops a reputation as someone to get the job done quickly, efficiently—brutally, if requested.

Both inevitable and unsurprising that one day the Gentleman requests her services.

"I have a job for you," he says from the other side of the table, all slick skin and slicker charm. Strange, but not the strangest thing Beau's seen, and certainly not strange enough for her to cut the conversation short. "Perhaps a contract if things go well. I'd find it useful to have someone with your skills on retainer—assuming that interests you, of course."

"Enough to ask what I'd get in return." Behind his chair, the broad-shouldered goliath shifts her weight, rests her hand on the hilt of a longsword that stands nearly as tall as Beau herself. Better than the shifty-looking halfling that keeps eyeing Beau from one of the balconies, laughing at his own private joke.

"Money, primarily. More of it than you'd know how to spend."

"You sure?" She leans back far enough to prop her boots on the table. "I can be pretty inventive."

"One of the things I find most intriguing about you." The Gentleman rises from his seat, rounds the table to lean against the chair to Beau's left. Now that he's standing, Beau can see he carries himself with the sense of a taller man. "Rest assured, money is by no means the extent of it. I can also offer you safety—protection, should matters ever take a turn for the worse. Be it providing an alibi, offering up a substitute offender, even ensuring more hands-on interference, if necessary."

"Sounds like a lot of effort."

"I'd consider it as an investment worth nurturing." He doesn't move in any closer, but Beau feels as if he's leaning over her, suddenly casting a longer shadow. "That is, an investment I would expect one day to pay dividends."

Fair enough. Beau's done nastier deals on the promise of less.

"And all that on the table after I take out whomever-the-fuck is causing you trouble?"

"That's right."

"Okay," Beau says, letting her boots drop from the table. "Sure. Tell me about the job."

It's not the easiest gig she's ever run, but nothing as bad as she'd expected from a man with his reputation. Just some big-shot from Rexxentrum with his pockets closed to bribery who's due to take up a post in Zadash within the month, enough of a hardliner to slow the Gentleman's work past the point of acceptability.

"I hate an honest bureaucrat," he says, halfway through a bowl of sunset-colored fruit. "Better for everyone when they learn that power is meant to be abused." Spears another piece of melon with the end of his knife. Beau doesn't often take jobs outside the city, but the Gentleman wants this dealt with before the fellow—Fairholme something-or-other—establishes himself in Zadash, and so she's willing to make an exception.

"Perhaps an accident along the road? One of those tragedies that doesn't leave too many questions—after all, children are right to fear things that stir in the night. Then again, I don't mean to tell you how to do your work. I have no doubt you'll come up with something suitably clever."

Not to mention that roadside jobs are messy, hard to plan and execute right. Some guard comes back sooner than expected from taking a shit and she's strung up in the back of their wagon looking at life in prison, if not a sooner end. No, better to get it done in Rexxentrum. Busier, sure, but crownsguard tend to go lazy from too much routine; she'd benefited from that often enough in Zadash.

They hash out the rest of the terms—the money he'll pay her up front and the larger sum kept waiting for her return—and then Beau offers up some of her blood to the bright-eyed tabaxi, and that's the end of it for the time being. Both more and less than she'd expected of him, she thinks later while packing for the trip. Certainly sure of his power, and rightfully so, but only a man after all.  

 

—

 

Her time in Rexxentrum is short, though successful. She doesn't care much for the city itself—narrow and crowded like it's been crushed inward, compressed until the buildings shadow the streets—but there are plenty of tall windows to watch from, and the city guard proves easily distracted. She gets it done with a poisoned dagger, a potent mix of venom smeared across the tip of a flat blade kept carefully tucked against her inner arm. Lets it slide down into her grip when Fairholme leaves his house in the morning, brushes against him in a market crowd with enough weight put behind it to break the skin of his upper thigh, little more than a neat cut through the leg of his breeches. Slight enough that he barely notices the sting. She's four blocks over before he falls to one knee, another two before he's down on his hands in the street. Has her hair pulled back and outer clothes tossed by the time he keels over for good.

 

—

 

" _Marvelous_ ," the Gentleman says upon her return, setting down his cards, smiling wide. "Timely, quiet, and neither of us targets of suspicion. I tell you, Beauregard, a man could get used to this sort of treatment."

"Then it'd be in his best interest to give me what I'm owed."

"Of course," he says, gesturing for a chest that takes two to bring over. "I understand the benefit of keeping both sides in a partnership happy." He counts out her payment, gold and platinum coins stacked up like a gilt collection of miniature buildings. "Have you given any further consideration to my proposed contract? Does it seem like an arrangement you might be interested in?"

"So, what—I'd be your personal hitman?"

"Something like that."

"And what happens in between jobs?" Beau looks between him and the coin, curious. "Got that many people you need dealt with?"

"It does tend to come with the work," the Gentleman says, lifting his hands slightly to indicate the room around them. Beau can't tell whether the stain on the wall behind him is dried blood or spilt wine. "But relax—rest assured that you'd have plenty of time to call your own. Whenever your services are not needed, I'm happy to offer you lodgings, a weekly stipend, whatever it is you require."

"You always so generous?"

"You have a valuable set of skills; I don't intend to see this opportunity wasted."

Beau nods, shifts her weight a little as she considers the offer. No doubt that he's a bastard, but at least he seems a reasonable one. She can work with that. "Yeah, alright then. Count me in."

 

—

 

It's over a year later when Beau hears a series of footfalls against the stairs—half-a-dozen folks coming in, it sounds like, which is different. She's halfway through a game of cards with Kara when the first of them reaches the landing, a lean-looking half-orc followed by a blue-skinned tiefling. A mangy fellow with dirt in his beard and a coat that looks like he pulled it from a back-alley dumpster, a bandaged-up goblin with a funny mask made of porcelain walking at his side. A woman tall enough that Beau wonders if there's any goliath blood in her, and another tiefling, purple-skinned and dressed up in bright colors who catches Cree's eye something funny. But Beau's got a decent hand and there's enough money in the pot to make a decent go of things with Kara, and so she only keeps one ear open as Cree goes up to the tiefling, as the six of them get pulled further into the room towards the Gentleman's table. They strike Beau as interesting enough, but several leagues out of their depth. She doubts they're the sort she'll be seeing again.

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't find a good estimate on the distance from zadash to rexxentrum, but I feel safe in assuming it's less than a month. if not, I'm not overly concerned


End file.
